Iris Cornelia Love

In July 1969 — in the very days humanity first stepped onto the Moon — the New York classical archaeologist Iris Love brought to light the round foundations of the long-sought Temple of Aphrodite at Knidos. Carried into the world's press under headlines like "Love Finds Temple of Love", the discovery made the young archaeologist famous overnight. From the late 1960s to the late 1970s she directed the Knidos excavations and placed the ancient city on the agenda of international archaeology. She died of coronavirus in New York in April 2020, aged 86.

Hers was the trowel that returned to Knidos a century after Charles Newton; she entered the peninsula's archaeological history as the finder of the temple that housed Praxiteles' famous statue. Her flamboyant character turned excavation seasons into world events; everyone who walks Knidos today steps on the stones of the round terrace she uncovered.